ESA Open Invitation to Tender: 1-11170
Open Date: 07/06/2022 11:31 CEST
Closing Date: 12/08/2022 13:00 CEST

The objective of the activity is to develop, manufacture and test a flexible joint for axial grooved aluminium ammonia heat pipes in order to allow the possibility of having deployable radiator extensions, full radiators, and to ease assembly, integration and test constraints and tolerances of traditional spacecraft panel construction. Targeted Improvements: Enabling technology for multi-hinged deployable radiator panels which have the same heat rejection as two regular deployable radiators. Description: Heat pipes are currently not flexible at all. Deployable Radiators (DPR) must therefore use loop heat pipes or straps. This prevents more compact solutions from being developed.Using advanced manufacturing a flexible joint with an internal capillary shall be developed. The jointwould be designed to move from 0 to 90 degrees with 180 degrees as a goal. Fatigue of the flexible part shall be investigated and tested along with non-condensable gas generation. The joint shall be weldable to standard axial groove aluminium heat pipes using ammonia. After reviewing available manufacturing techniques to introduce a flexible joint that is compatible with the necessary capillarystructure, multiple breadboard samples shall be built and tested, both thermally and mechanically. The flexible joint will be validated by mechanical and thermal testing of a scaled engineering model.

Directorate: Directorate Telecom Integrated Applica
Estabilishment: ESTEC
ECOS Required: No
Classified: No
Price Range: > 500 KEURO
Authorised Contact Person: Nathalie Dorval
Initiating Service: TIA-TTS
IP Measure: N/A
Prog. Reference: E/0534-01G – CC-AT 4.0.1
Tender Type: Open Competition
Open To Tenderers From: AT+BE+CA+CH+CZ+DE+DK+GR+ES+FI+FR+GB+HU+IE+IT+LU+NL+NO+PL+PT+RO+SE
Technology Keywords: 21-A-I-Heat Pipes
Products Keywords: 2-O-3-a-Constance Conductance Heat Pipes (CCHPs)